Are your kids lonely too?
I have a probably-diagnosable-obsession over Stranger Things. The amount of nostalgia I feel when I watch it is next level. And, actually, I’m a 90’s kid, so it’s not even really “my” nostalgia (though having six older sisters who were, in fact, 80’s kids helps). I think the main reason — aside from the wall-phones, walkie-talkies, malls, swimming pools, newspapers, and amazing clothing choices — is the friendships. Really truly, it makes me almost sick with nostalgia to watch Mike ride his bike to Will’s house every day, or to watch Steve and Dustin become as symbiotic as cattle egret and a cow (probably should have chosen better animal examples for this metaphor, but…can’t think of any right now).
But why should I be feeling nostalgia about friendships? They haven’t gone the way of the wall-phone, right?
Except they have.
And, ironically, they seem to have been replaced by the very device that replaced the wall-phone…and the walkie-talkie…and the mall…and the swimming pool…and the newspaper.
All the shiny, happy humans are doing it. We use our phones as a phone (sometimes), as a relay for short bursts of information (usually written), as a shopping center, as entertainment, as a news source. Because of that, we’ve turned all those things into solo activities or, at best, parallel interactions, but almost never true interactive events.
It’s made junk-interaction too easy to get, so no one wants the really nutritious relationships anymore (I’m on a roll with terrible metaphors. Stop me).
We have this generation of kids who need each other but who don’t realize they need each other because they seem satiated by the small bursts of entertainment and low-barrier approval and easy intrigue they get from their phones.
And the worst part is that I can curtail and influence this usage to a degree with my own wise-beyond-her-years daughter, but there is absolutely nothing I can do to change the society around her.
Like a nutritionist in a corporate office, they can eat healthy all they want, but there will still be bowls of candy at each desk and donuts on Mondays (not even trying to avoid these terrible metaphors anymore).
I can give my daughter a bike. But she’ll have no one to ride it with.
I can give her money for shopping, but there’s no one to go with. In fact, more and more, there’s nowhere to go in the real world.
I can buy her a pool pass, but the pool will be empty.
It seems like everyone else’s kids are sitting at home, on their phones, “interacting” with their virtual, algorithm-designed worlds. It’s one of the toughest realizations I’ve had as a parent. There’s so much I cannot control for her.
Am I the only one who feels this way? Anyone else want to run away and create a radical community where we force all children to put their phones away and get so bored that they invent arcade games and malls and fight evil? I’m joking. Sort of.
hmu…on ur phone…if you agree. Oh wait.
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